Monday, June 15, 2009

clafoutis - the experienced tutorial

Every so often an recipe is just too good to pass up on. My first clafoutis as now expanded into an almost daily ritual. Ok, well not that far, but I've now made 4 of these delectable dishes in the last week. It's so simple and with all my "experience" I figured it would be time for a clafoutis slideshow.

With two eggs in your mixer, add in 1/4 cup of sugar

Pour in a tasty amount of vanilla

Pour in a 1/2 cup of milk(I've used homo and 2%)

And finally add a 1/2 cup of AP flour.

Place your cherries in a buttered dutch oven (yes I forgot to butter for the picture!)

Pour the batter over top and place in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Let cool for another 30 minutes, before pulling it from the dutchy.

The first two versions were done with your basic everyday cherry. The next two received something special...rainier cherries. I had no idea what rainier cherries were, or why they were so expensive until I came home and googled it. It looks like the rainier cherry is the cream of the crop. A very delicate cherry, the harvest potential can change daily depending on rain, temperature, and wind. Not to mention it is a favorite of birds who eat 1/3 of the crop. These prized cherries can even reach $1 a piece in Japan!

They are definitely bigger than your standard cherry and I found them sweeter as well. The creamy yellow/red flesh also makes for gorgeous presentation. My third clafoutis was straight rainier cherry, and my fourth was a 50/50 mix. Both versions were delicious, but I couldn't say the rainier versions were drastically better. I really hope everyone out there attempts this easy and delicious treat!

Now that I've got my clafoutis kick out of the way. It's time to experiment with apricots, dates, blackberries....oh dear lord, what am I in for!

5 comments:

KimHo said...

Last weekend, in "Dear Food Network", Alton Brown was doing this recipe again; however, he was doing it with grilled pineapple pieces (the show itself was on grilling) and in a dutch oven with pieces of charcoal. Sure, as you mentioned, it might not be called clafoutis anymore but, hey, the principle is still the same!

Chris said...

Oh Alton, how I adore his food self! Grilled Pineapple you say. I love grilling it over pork. Now I'll have to add it to my list of future fruit attempts. Thanks Kim. geeky

Sarah said...

This was delicious. Thanks again for sharing. The rainier cherries are my favourite, always have been. :)

hanne said...

Where did you find those cherries? They're gorgeous-looking!

AJM said...

I've always seen clafoutis on menus and in cookbooks and never knew what they were. Now that I do, I want to eat some! I can't get good cherries here, but maybe I'll try an apricot version, thx for opening my eyes to clafoutis! (Thats fun to say)

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